“Across Europe, the EIB Group is delivering EU priorities: boosting European competitiveness and the EU's leadership in green technologies, and helping to ensure a more secure future for people across the Union and around the world. The Group kept its promises. It met and exceeded its targets on a range of key EU priorities. This will translate into tangible benefits for us all, from safer drinking water to improved public transport, from better access to vaccines to more 5G mobile coverage, from job creation and increasing competitiveness to energy security and efficiency,” said President Calviño.
With €349 billion of green investment mobilized since 2021, the Group is on track to achieve the goal of €1 trillion of green financing supported by the end of the decade. €49 billion was financed directly for climate action and environmental sustainability in 2023, up from €38 billion in 2022.
In a year characterized by growing instability around the world, EIB Global, the Group's dedicated arm for investments outside of the EU, provided more than €8.4 billion for projects, almost half of which went to the world's least developed countries and fragile states. Overall, EIB Global financing mobilized €27 billion of investments under the EU Global Gateway initiative, ahead of schedule to reach €100 billion under the program by 2027. On top of nearly €2 billion of assistance to Ukraine since Russia's invasion, 2023 the Bank established the EU4U Fund, supported by Member States and the European Commission, to further boost economic resilience and reconstruction in Ukraine.
The EIB Group invested €19.8 billion in innovation and €20 billion to support small and medium-sized enterprises and midcaps. This is largely thanks to investment by the European Investment Fund, the EIB Group's specialized provider of risk finance, which last year signed close to €15 billion of investments. This includes €1 billion under the European Tech Champions Initiative to scale up start-ups in disruptive technologies and improve Europe's competitiveness. Among other innovation-focused investments, beneficiaries of EIB Group financing included 19 artificial intelligence projects.
The Group's financing in 2023 is expected to support around €320 billion in investment, reach 400,000 companies, and support 5.4 million jobs. More than 45% of the Group's financing inside the EU went to support cohesion regions, with nearly 20% going to less developed regions in the EU, where the per capita gross domestic product is less than 75% of the EU average.
“But we know that the challenges we face demand a hugely scaled-up effort, and we can help Europe do that. This week alone, the EIB Group is announcing new projects in Sweden, Romania, Italy, Spain, France, Poland, Lithuania, and Bulgaria to support new green technologies from charging stations to railways, green steel manufacturing, and solar solutions“, said President Calviño.
